You Asked For This Meeting
by KyliaQuilor
Summary: Grant Ward has been running his own operation for nearly a year now. He's recruited former Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel, and some of the new Inhumans, and while his organization could never be called good, they're far from any reasonable definition of evil - which hasn't stopped them from clashing with S.H.I.E.L.D. a few times. So why is Skye wanting a face to face meeting?


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

 **Note:** This, like most of my oneshots, is unbeta'd. Also written fairly quickly. Inspiration struck.

 **Note 2:** I contemplated doing the thing where Ward calls Skye Skye and she goes 'it's Daisy' and he just insists on calling her Skye in this 'whatever' sort of way. But I decided I don't want to give any support to the 'she calls herself Daisy now' idea.

 **Note 3:** Since Civil War hasn't hit the screens yet, this fic operates under the assumption it doesn't/hasn't/whatever happen(ed).

 **Note 4:** I know I'm kind of dropping you in the middle of a story in progress. That's basically how the idea came to me, unfortunately.

You Asked For This Meeting

By Alkeni

 **Cafe, Paris, France  
March 4th, 2016**

Ward watched Skye glaring at him as he pulled out a chair and sat down across the table from her. They were situated just outside of a lovely little cafe he'd come to like since relocating his base of operations to Paris. Granted, he'd only relocated her a month ago and he'd be relocating again soon (and no longer able to come to this cafe), but being mobile hadn't hampered his efforts much. The organization he'd cobbled together from a handful of remnant factions of Hydra and some ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who held little love for the agency (even if they'd never been Hydra) wasn't large and didn't have a lot of physical baggage to carry around.

"Hello Skye." Ward crossed his arms, looking at her. She'd cut her hair. He couldn't say he liked it, but she still... she still looked amazing. She always did, always would. "I'd say long time no see, but we did just see each other last month, in Budapest." That had been the first time he'd laid eyes on her in person since that mission in the arctic. Not that he hadn't seen plenty of videos and pictures of her.

Skye snorted. "Yea. And that bitch you've got as your second in command took a shot at me. Three shots, actually."

Ward just rolled his eyes. "That 'bitch' is my sister. And if Rose wanted to kill you, you'd be dead." Well, not necessarily. Rose was a damn good shot, but she wasn't perfect. But Ward was pretty sure she hadn't been trying to actually hit Skye that time. That time. He wasn't sure if Rose wouldn't actually _aim_ next time she saw Skye.

 _Which would be why I sent her to Rome before accepting this little meeting._

"Being related to _you_ is hardly a qualifier for being _not_ a bitch." Skye replied coldly.

"And being related to you didn't stop your parents from being monsters." Ward replied, not letting any emotion into his tone, ignoring the pained look in her eyes that flashed for a moment as he brought up her parents. "Your father has a body count that might actually be larger than mine, and your mother just about started a war. If you just arranged this meeting because you wanted to attack me and mine, then we can do that with bullets, not with words over some of the best espresso in Paris. I'm going to guess you have a reason for wanting to talk with me face to face. I know you don't have people situated to capture me, so this isn't a trap. And you're not likely to start an earthquake on the streets of Paris just to get me."

Ward spread his arms. "So, what's the deal? You asked for this meeting, Skye. What do you want?"

Skye shook his head. "Straight to the point. I expected more attempts at chitchat. Every other time -"

"Every other time we spoke, _Skye_ , since I was stuck into that little box you called a prison cell, I was holding onto the delusion that you had any interest in treating me like a human being. I don't hold onto that anymore." Ward wished he could have held onto the delusion. It was comfortable. It was... a nice delusion. But it wasn't what was.

"Then why did you agree to this meeting?" Skye shot back, disgust dripping off of every word like water out of a tree after a storm. Idly, Ward wondered if she was constitutionally capable of speaking to him without some kind of venom or rage in her words.

"Curiosity. Boredom." Ward half expected her to respond with 'running an evil organization doesn't occupy enough of your time?' or something along those lines. Mostly it was curiosity, more than boredom, but if there was one thing Skye ever was, it was boring.

"Lash." Was Skye's response. Her tone became all business, proving that she could keep the hate out of her voice if she wanted to. _Good to know_.

"Yea. He has been causing problems for you, hasn't he?" Ward shrugged his shoulders.

"And for you. I know about the girl in Rio de Janiero." Ward bit the inside of his cheek to keep from reacting more visibly – like biting his lip or something. Because as far as he was concerned, bring reminded of the... _disaster_ that had been Rio de Janiero...

He had gone with Rose and two more of his people – two of the new Inhumans that he'd recruited to his organization – to track down a girl that by all reports as also an Inhuman, and had gained the ability to control fire. She'd burned down her house after undergoing 'Terragenesis', killing her parents, and gone on the run, from herself and everyone else.

They'd found her, and Ward was trying to help her, help her realize that what she did – something she had no control over – didn't make her a bad person. _And I should know. I **am** a bad person, all things said and done._

But he hadn't gotten the chance to do more than start to calm her down – which had been hard enough as it was – before Lash, whom he'd only heard about in passing before, had arrived with some of his fellow purity-obsessed fanatics and killed her. Nearly killed him and Rose – and _had_ killed Franz. Matthew had gotten away along with him and his sister, but only just.

"That's not the only time you've had to deal with him and his." Skye added.

"No." Ward said, back to being utterly toneless. "So what, you want to join forces against him?"

" _I_ would be happy with you being in a box for the rest of your natural life." The hacker crossed her hands on the table. "But Coulson wants to work with you against him. He thinks 'you and yours' are the better choice over Lash or the other factions of Hydra that have risen up since Strucker's death. There's a hell of a lot of those."

"Cut off one head and two more shall take its place wasn't just an arrogant boast." Ward replied. "Hydra's kind of like cockroaches like that." Yes, a lot of his people had been Hydra. But his group wasn't Hydra. He'd made sure no one who was still loyal to Hydra and its ideals made it out of their first few weeks without a bullet in the back of the head. Or the heart. He wasn't particular.

"The last time Coulson and I worked together, his solution of a 'reward' was wiping my memories. And Simmons tried to kill me, and none of you really seemed interested in having me around. Did he think that if you asked, I'd be unable to refuse you?" _Not that I've said no yet._ And Lash needed to die for what he'd done. That much was true. And it would be easier if he worked _with_ Coulson to do it.

But he really had no interest in helping S.H.I.E.L.D. with anything.

"He thought it might be the case. But also sent me prepared with an offer." Skye leaned in towards him. "Thomas."

Ward really did bite his lip this time. Bite his lip and look away.

The fact that Rose had also joined the Army and then gone on to be a private security contractor hadn't been especially surprising, when he finally made contact with one of his long-lost siblings after...

 _After I killed Kara._ Rose had always been interested in guns and the military. It had annoyed their mother to no end... _well, annoyed would be an understatement._

But finding out that Thomas, after everything that he'd been through, at the hands of Christian... at Ward's own hands... Thomas had, by the time he was sixteen, fallen into drugs. And he had kept at it, graduating from beer and pot to other drugs, and to crime to fuel his habit. Christian had kept Thomas' arrest three years ago on a dozen different drug related counts and two count of larceny (which, admittedly, he really was guilty of, according to all the information Ward had been able to find) out of the papers and the whole thing well hidden, but it had happened.

"Coulson has a lot of nerve-"

"He can get Thomas out. We still have some friends in the criminal justice system, and it isn't like Christian is around to stop us so he can keep Thomas from embarrassing him." Skye sat back. "That's the offer. Your help with Lash, and your little brother walks."

Ward knew he was giving her tells, being as stiff as he was, clenching one hand into a fist. He didn't really care. _Rose will want to take the deal. She'll be pissed at me for turning this down._ And Ward wouldn't forgive himself for it either. And Lash – Ward wanted to see that son of bitch _pay._

"Forgive me if I don't trust Coulson any more than I trust you." Ward said carefully. "But I'll consider it. Keep an eye on that burner phone." Ward got up – he didn't turn his back to Skye as he left. He kept an eye on her as the bland, light-grey car one of his men was driving pulled up on the curve. Ward got inside and pulled the door closed.

"You brought a Sat Phone, right?" Ward asked tersely.

"I did." The man replied. He opened the glove box and handed it to him. "Do we need to make travel arrangements?"

"Not yet." Ward told him as he started to dial Rose's phone. "But you should start planning out what you actually want to pack."


End file.
